1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to communication and information tracking systems, and more particularly to systems and methods for the recording, storage, distribution and processing of an information item wherein, for example, in a single step, an individual records an information item and has it immediately transmitted to a system for further processing.
2. Related Art
With all the gadgets, devices, and tools that exist in today's mobile world, individuals continue to suffer from the lack of a reliable, readily available, and simple method of remembering and making records of ideas, appointments, and tasks. Automatically receiving follow up reminders and then getting those items “into play” in a timely manner is another issue that is not adequately addressed. It would be desirable to address these two distinct problems with a single, simple solution.
The first problem is that of notating or recording the item that has the potential to be forgotten or lost. The second is the act of delivering that item to a system and/or entity that can take some sort of action on the item, and do it in a timely manner.
It is important to provide a solution that can be initiated with a simple, almost automatic action that requires a minimum number of steps to accomplish the task of recording the item that comes to the user's mind, and then getting that item into a system that can handle any required storage, distribution, and/or execution related to the recorded item. Additionally it is important that any process involved in the solution minimizes the interruption of the user's thought process. In other words, it should cause the minimum amount of distraction between the time the thought of a specific item comes to the user and that item's arrival in a system that can then manage the storage, distribution, and/or execution of tasks associated with the information. The actions taken by the system should not require further action on the part of the user.
There have been many attempts to solve these problems. Until the advent of the ubiquitous presence of the cell phone network, there appeared to be no realistic way to solve them. Essentially every attempt at solving the problems has met with the same fate—each attempted solution has been either incomplete, unreliable, or inconvenient. Often, all three of these issues remained in the prior art “solutions.”
If the user is at a computer and that computer has access to the tools necessary to record and transmit the user's information, that is one thing. But increasingly this is NOT the case. Oftentimes, the user has only a cell phone, or some other personal communication device that can behave similarly to a cell phone, and therein lies the problem.
Users of cell phones and other personal communication devices experience a unique problem when attempting to make notes, leave reminders for themselves, or communicate messages and instructions to others. The number of steps that are currently required to do this is excessive, and the methods are essentially unreliable. This problem manifests itself to an even larger extent when users are not in a situation where they can focus on organizing their thoughts, etc. Driving is but one example of this type of situation, but is a common one.
One of the underlying problems need to be solved is that of having to deal with too many interruptions and having to perform too many steps to get the item from the user's mind to the user's “target,” and to make sure that any required follow up actions are monitored until that item is acknowledged. Preferably, these things need to be done without user intervention to provide authentication.
As mentioned above, there are existing solutions, but each of these has significant shortcomings. These other solutions include: hand held recorders; email and instant messaging; voicemail to oneself and to others; etc.
Hand Held Recorder
Shortcomings:
1. Hand held recorders can be lost, stolen, or otherwise misplaced; any recordings, of course, that are in the device are also lost.
2. Hand held recorders can reach their capacity. Once that has happened, there is no way to record any further information. The user is right back to the point of the problem—having to depend on their own memory to recall the item.
3. Hand held recorders can lose power and there is often no realistic, immediate alternative method to accomplish the task of remembering the item.
4. The information that is recorded on today's hand held recorders are not transmitted or furnished to a system and/or a person that could do something with it until additional manual steps are taken—oftentimes hours, days or even weeks later!
Email, Instant Messaging
Shortcomings:
1. Composing, entering, and editing tend to leave a user to NOT complete their thought process, thereby possibly eliminating important elements of the communication to the intended recipient.
2. Too much of a mechanical process.
3. Must be at a computer (not available while driving.
Voicemail to the Recipient
Shortcomings:
1. Not every intended recipient of a message has voicemail.
2. Voicemail often has lengthy introductory messages that the user must wait for, again disrupting their thought process and leading to an incomplete communication.
3. The recipient may answer. The thought process is interrupted and an unintended conversation may ensue.
4. When leaving a message on someone else's message machine or voice mail, the user has no record of the message that they left.
5. There is no way a user can know if the message was received by the recipient.
6. There is no guarantee of the privacy of the message—anyone who has access to that phone or message machine can listen to, and even erase the message.
Voicemail to Self (User)
Shortcomings:
1. Not every user has voicemail at a location that they can guarantee will be unanswered.
2. Most cell phone services will not allow you to leave a voicemail to yourself when calling your cell phone from that cell phone.
3. It is either difficult or impossible to capture and save the message left for future reference and/or processing.
Following are some exemplary scenarios in which the shortcomings of other solutions are apparent.
A user could call his own cell phone and leave a message. On most cell phone services, however, this option does not exist. In most such services, upon answering, the user is immediately put into a mode to retrieve his voicemail or perform other operations that are unrelated to the user's intended purpose—that of leaving a message and optionally forwarding it to other parties. In many cases, a person must let the phone ring for some amount of time (to allow the called number to be possibly answered by a human) and then be forced to listen to a distracting message before being given the opportunity to leave his message. All of these factors tend to distract the caller and often cause that caller to forget the message he wanted to leave, in part or in whole. Further, while accomplishing the task of getting the message into a tangible form that can be retrieved at a later time, most systems do not offer the ability to distribute that message to others immediately, nor do they offer a way for the caller to easily access the message for future processing and handling. Further, the above processes do not accomplish the task of recording the information and getting it to the target in a single step with any degree of user authentication.
A user could alternatively call a “land line” and attempt to leave voice mail or a message. Some of the same problems exist as with calling one's own cell phone:
1. The user must wait for the requisite number of rings to occur before the land-line even answers.
2. The user must often wait for a message to be played before leaving a message.
3. Because the user does not have the ability to control other callers leaving messages in their voicemail, the voicemail box may be full.
4. When attempting to retrieve a specific reminder, the user will have to “wade” through other unrelated voicemails before reaching the desired voicemail message/reminder.
There are additional issues that must also be dealt with:
1. The phone system that receives the message may be keyed to call the user's cell phone or pager to inform them that there is a message in their voicemail when, in fact, that message is their own!
2. The phone system voicemail inbox/receiver that receives the message may be available to multiple persons or people that the user may not want to leave said message with.
Again, the above process does not accomplish the task of recording the information and getting it to the target in a single step with authentication.
Alternatively, a user could take any number of steps to fire up a program on a computer, PDA, or even a cell phone to get a message to either themselves or others via SMS, MMS, email, instant message, etc. All of those methods, however, require far more than a single step to get the message to the target.